Lee Love on sun 5 aug 07
On 8/5/07, Chuck Wagoner wrote:
> One thing we can all agree on is it was "beautiful" when the CUBS won
> yesterday. Now that was beauty!
Because my last name is Love, I have always been aware of how
words like Love are made more or less meaningless by their misuse.
For example,: "I Love ice cream." Or as in E's example of the
gardener seeing dog crap as beautiful.
It is a degradation of language. Certainly, it works in
colloquial usage but is not useful in a serious discussion about
aesthetics. If you examine the above examples, you know that in
each case, we really aren't speaking of beauty or love in the
aesthetic sense.
The opposite pitfall is using specialist language to seem
like you know more than what you really do. Wendell Berry explores
these problems in his out of print book, Standing By Words._ I just
found that it is back in print!
http://www.amazon.com/Standing-Words-Essays-Wendell-Berry/dp/1593760558
Berry points out that the degradation of a culture parallels
a degradation of its language. Specialist use non-standard language
with the general public in order to shuck responsibility and for
control. This is very evident when listening to specialists speak
about the I-35 bridge.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -
Henry David Thoreau
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
John Connolly on mon 6 aug 07
One of the first things one notices when beginning to study a foreign language is that the English language as we in the U.S. use it has become imprecise and vague. It is increasing difficult to have a discussion when no one agrees on the usage of the terms or insists on using them in an imprecise manner.
John Connolly in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
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